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1 Time for a Gut Rehab: How the Next Governor Can Rebuild New York State s Affordable Housing Legacy A Report by Pratt Center for Community Development June 2006

2 GLOSSARY Building Blocks: Institutions and Terms in New York Housing Apartments built through tax-exempt bonds, funded at the state level by HFA and in New York City by HDC. By federal law, at least 20 percent of the units in these developments must be affordable. AHC Affordable Housing Corporation This division of HFA supports low- and moderate-income homeownership. AMI Area Median Income Calculated by HUD, based on large geographic areas incorporating cities and their suburbs or nearby rural areas. CQC DOH Commission on the Quality of Care for the Mentally Disabled New York State Department of Health New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal An independent government agency charged with oversight of the multiple agencies responsible for the mentally ill. Oversees adult care facilities. DHCR New York State's executive-branch housing agency, in charge of capital investments and rent regulation. FMR Fair Market Rent Determined by HUD, this is the price of the HDC HFA HHAP HUD MBBA MCI NPP/RPP NY/NY OMH SONYMA New York City Housing Development Corporation New York State Housing Finance Agency Homeless Housing and Assistance Program U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Municipal Bond Bank Agency Major Capital Improvement Neighborhood Preservation Program/Rural Preservation Program New York/New York Agreement to House Homeless Mentally Ill Individuals New York State Office of Mental Health State of New York Mortgage Agency average 2-bedroom apartment in a region. This quasi-governmental authority issues bonds to build affordable and market-rate housing. The state's agency issuing bonds for housing development. Gives grants to nonprofits and government agencies for the development of housing for homeless New Yorkers. The federal agency in charge of housing and community development; provides rental vouchers, public housing subsidies, repair funds and other affordable housing support. This division of HFA provides loans to cities in anticipation of future revenue. A renovation to an apartment qualifying its landlord to charge a permanent rent increase. Provides grants to community-based organizations statewide for tenant and homeowner counseling and other housingrelated services. A 1990 New York City-State commitment to building supportive housing for people with mental illness. NY/NY has since been renewed twice. Agency in charge of development of supportive housing (apartments with services on site for residents with special needs) and supported housing (rented apartments with services available). Insures mortgages for first-time low-and moderate-income homebuyers and those buying in targeted neighborhoods.

5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Time for a Gut Rehab: How the Next Governor Can Rebuild New York State s Affordable Housing Legacy A DIMINISHED LEGACY Eighty years ago, New York State was a national pioneer in creating affordable housing an effort led by its governor. In 1926, Governor Al Smith signed the Housing Act, which sparked a wave of low-cost development. New York was one of just two states to help produce housing before the New Deal. Republican and Democratic governors Harriman, Carey, Rockefeller, Cuomo continued and expanded this legacy. As he leaves the helm of New York State after 12 years in office, Governor George Pataki leaves a different legacy: a consistent failure to ensure that New Yorkers have access to decent and reasonably priced housing. Despite sharply growing need, Governor Pataki and his administration have: Cut investments in affordable housing and failed to provide new funding. Undermined the security of millions of tenants and facilitated the loss of tens of thousands of units of affordable housing. Invested more than half of scarce taxfree bond financing in luxury housing. Given major campaign contributors favorable treatment and excessive funding. Taken actions that have increased the number of homeless New Yorkers. Neglected adult home residents with mental illness, and failed to provide housing alternatives. Failed to devise a statewide strategy responding to varying housing and development needs across New York. New York faces a housing affordability crisis. Rising rents and stagnant wages have squeezed tenants, making New York one of the least affordable states in the nation. Cities such as Buffalo, Rochester, and Binghamton are facing increasing rates of foreclosure and abandonment, blighting communities and imposing costs on already struggling city governments. Many states and localities nationwide have responded to housing crises with leadership and innovation. They have increased public investment, created dedicated housing trust funds, linked smart growth to mixed-income housing, established public-private development partnerships, preserved subsidized housing, and launched initiatives to end homelessness. Instead of focusing on public needs, the Pataki administration has focused on the needs of developers and campaign contributors. Campaign contributors from the real estate and healthcare industries have driven the state s oversight of rental and special-needs housing. Major campaign contributors to the governor and other Republican elected officials received virtually all of New York State s Liberty Bonds for lower Manhattan housing development, and large donors are overrepresented among developers receiving housing financing. NEW YORK S GROWING NEED Since Governor Pataki entered office in 1995, the housing needs of New York families and communities have grown dramatically: New York s housing costs have risen rapidly, at a rate that has outpaced the nation s. Meanwhile, renters income has declined. In 1998, the federal government s fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in New York State was $818 a month. By 2006, it had risen to $1,026 a month. At the same time, the median income of tenants, adjusted for inflation, fell from $43,941 in 1998 to $34,931 in 2005, estimates the National Low Income Housing Coalition a 21 percent drop. The National Low Income Housing Coalition ranks New York the fifth least affordable state: A household must earn $19.73 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment $25.31 an hour in Westchester, with Long Island ($24.62 an hour) and New York City ($21.79 an hour) not far behind. Nearly one in three New York households spends more than 30 percent of income on housing. 5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

6 Approximately 2 million out of New York State s 7 million households, and more than half of those in New York City, pay more than 30 percent of their incomes toward housing. In cities from Albany to Rochester, approximately half of all renters cannot afford an average two-bedroom apartment. Abandonment has spread through upstate cities. From 1990 to 2000, the vacancy rate for upstate cities grew from 8 to 11.5 percent. The nine upstate cities with populations over 50,000 saw their vacancy rate grow to 13 percent. Bank foreclosure rates are rising, accelerated by mortgage and appraisal fraud, speculative property flipping, and high-cost, high-risk borrowing. Homelessness has climbed dramatically. The number of homeless people in New York City s shelters has increased by 50 percent since The state government s estimates of the number of homeless people statewide more than doubled between 2001 and RESPONSE TO GROWING NEED? SPEND LESS TO HELP Governor Pataki has persistently sought to cut capital spending on housing. During Governor Pataki s three terms in office, state spending inched up from $95 million in 1996 to $104 million in However, it would have needed to be $119 million just to have the same buying power as in 1995 with no increase to match the growing need. Without the increased appropriations from the Senate and Assembly, state capital investment in housing would have declined by 13 percent during Pataki s tenure. New York is one of just 17 states without a dedicated housing trust fund. Thirty-three states have housing trust funds with dedicated funding sources. While New York has a program called the Low Income Housing Trust Fund, it is not a true trust fund it has no dedicated funding stream. Potential revenue streams such as the $522 million in real estate transfer taxes collected this year, or the more than $225 million in excess reserves the State of New York Mortgage Agency transferred in 2004 have been growing in recent years. But they have gone instead into the state s general budget, resulting in no gain for affordable housing. New York City spends more than six times what New York State spends per person on affordable housing. New York State spends $6.45 per state resident per year on affordable housing and related services. New York City spends more than $40. THE HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY: LUXURY HOUSING AND EXCESSIVE SPENDING The New York State Housing Finance Agency (HFA), whose board is appointed by the governor, has lagged behind housing finance agencies around the country. It has failed to live up to its mission to finance affordable housing development, and it has squandered public resources on excessive fees and subsidies. More than half of HFA s bond resources over the past five years have gone to finance luxury housing, primarily in Manhattan. From 2000 through 2005, only 5,959 out of 12,715 total units (47 percent) were affordable. For projects proposed in New York City in 2005, just 822 out of 3,127, or 26 percent, were affordable. This includes development financed with Liberty Bonds, authorized by Congress after 9/11 to finance housing construction in Lower Manhattan. HFA made just 5 percent of these units affordable, and even these went to households earning up to $94,200 a year. Under Pataki, the agency was a site of corrupt activity, with a VP inducing developers to make political contributions. Yet the agency has acknowledged no effort to probe or prevent such corruption. Agency vice-president Hector del Toro was convicted in 2004 for steering developers receiving HFA financing to make political contributions to Republican State Senator Guy Velella. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

7 Valuable bonds and tax credits are largely awarded to developers who are significant campaign contributors to Governor Pataki and his allies. HFA awarded more than $620 million in Liberty Bonds to a handful of developers who had made substantial contributions to the governor. These bonds are estimated to be worth more than $113 million in subsidy to the developers, who wish to create luxury units. In total, Liberty Bond developers contributed $1.6 million to Governor Pataki and Republican allies. Developer Leonard Litwin, who received nearly 30 percent of the stateallocated Liberty Bonds worth nearly $60 million in subsidy contributed more than $770,000 to New York Republicans. HFA has given subsidies to a major Pataki donor far in excess of what other developers receive. HFA has awarded the Atlantic Development Group (ADG) developer fees far in excess of other developers and an outsize share of its tax-exempt bonds and low-income housing tax credits. ADG principal Peter Fine and his wife were each among the top 10 contributors to Governor Pataki in 2004; added together, they would be number one, at $65,341. Fine s ADG partner, Marc Altheim, donated an additional $10,000 to Pataki that year. DESTABILIZING TENANTS Governor Pataki has done more to eliminate rent regulation and other tenant protections than any other New York governor. Governor Pataki has had heavy financial support from the state lobby for landlords. The governor and other Republicans have collected well over $1 million from landlord political action committees. The governor appointed as his first housing commissioner a Harlem landlord whose buildings had become so decrepit that some had been removed from his control. Rollbacks in rent laws have rapidly shrunk the state s stock of regulated housing. If New York now had the same share of rent regulated units as it had in 1996, the city would now have nearly 112,000 more rent-regulated apartments than now exist. With landlords lawyers advising him from the next room, in 1997 Governor Pataki won unprecedented concessions from the state legislature that allow landlords to remove apartments permanently from rent regulation. The Pataki administration substantially altered rent laws without approval from the legislature. In 2000, the Division of Housing and Community Renewal made 150 pages of amendments to the state s Rent Stabilization Code. Many new provisions made it more difficult for tenants to successfully file complaints, and all but one favored landlords. With minimal state oversight, landlords break the rent laws with impunity. The State Division of Housing and Community Renewal has erected bureaucratic hurdles making it extremely difficult for tenants to contest rent overcharges and landlord harassment. Enforcement staff was cut by one-third. The state now grants landlord requests for rent increases resulting from major capital improvements, such as new boilers, windows and elevators, without substantial review. One of the largest private landlords in New York, with nearly 20,000 units in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens, Pinnacle Group LLC has filed an extremely large number of eviction proceedings and applications for major capital improvements that enable them to raise rents. Tenants claim that improvements were never done or were exaggerated. While DHCR did cite Pinnacle for falsifying an application in one instance where tenants complained, subsequent applications have been approved without additional scrutiny, leading to dramatic increases in rent. The Pataki administration has ended state support of public housing and done too little to keep Mitchell-Lama buildings affordable. In 1998, the Pataki administration eliminated the state s annual operating subsidy for stateassisted public housing. The state Division of Housing and Community Renewal also sold more than a dozen public housing developments around the state to private firms. As a result, units that 7 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

8 were once permanently affordable may now go to market rate in the next generation. The New York City Housing Authority faces a substantial budget shortfall, due in part to an annual deficit of tens of millions of dollars on public housing units built by the state but for which the governor eliminated the operating subsidy. The administration has also done too little to save Mitchell-Lama housing, especially rental developments that are an extraordinary affordable housing resource for moderate-income families. In contrast to Mayor Bloomberg, who introduced legislation making clearer rules to keep the rental units rent-stabilized even if they leave the program, DHCR has refused to issue clear guidelines that would prevent owners from charging large rent increases. BATTLING EFFORTS TO HOUSE THE HOMELESS At a time of rapidly rising homelessness, the Pataki administration has limited state support for housing for the homeless. State housing production for the mentally ill has shrunk substantially. During the last five years of the administration of Governor Mario Cuomo, the state office of Mental Health (OMH) created approximately 7,500 units of housing, or an average of 1,500 a year. Under Governor Pataki, the development rate has dropped to half of that just 776 units each year. Governor Pataki refused to extend a landmark supportive housing initiative. In 1997, the Giuliani administration sought to renew the New York/New York Agreement to House Homeless Mentally Ill Individuals (NY/NY), a groundbreaking partnership to create supportive housing. The Pataki administration refused. Only when public outcry over the murder of a woman by an untreated mentally ill man made it politically impossible to refuse did the governor agree to extend New York/New York. The state has not provided full funding for its supportive housing commitments. Under the latest NY/NY Agreement, the governor committed to build 3,125 new units of supportive housing. However, the state appropriated capital funding for just 1,125 units. Adult HomeS: Willful NEglect, Scandal, AND LITTLE of the promised Housing New York s Adult Care Facilities, commonly referred to as adult homes, have a long history of fraud, neglect and abuse, becoming a dumping ground for people with mental illness. The Pataki administration decimated adult home inspection teams. The New York City office alone shrank from 25 inspectors to 5. Industry figures became top regulators. The administration transferred regulatory authority over adult homes to the Department of Health, a move requested by the adult home operators lobbying group, and appointed its executive director and the spouse of its lobbyist to top oversight positions. Following tragedy, only 100 new homes. In 2002, The New York Times published a shocking investigation on adult homes. Adult home operators forced scores of residents to undergo medically unnecessary surgeries for the operators financial gain. Almost 1,000 residents had died in adult homes since Pataki had taken office, onethird of them under the age of 60. Governor Pataki appointed an Adult Homes Workgroup, which proposed moving 6,000 adult home residents into new and rented housing with mental health services. To date, fewer than 100 adult home residents have relocated to more appropriate housing. In his 2006 budget veto, the governor tried to eliminate funding for another 55 units. RESTORING THE LEGACY Across the United States in red states and blue; in urban, suburban, and rural areas; and in every region in the country governors have recognized that good housing policy is vital for successful states. New York s next governor can learn from the range of strategies his counterparts have implemented: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

9 Innovative Approaches to Financing Affordable housing trust funds: Florida s housing trust fund, the nation s largest, has created 150,000 units of affordable housing in 13 years. Housing finance agencies as leaders: In Indiana and Iowa, the state housing finance agencies provide leadership on affordable housing development, convening partners, staffing planning and policy development, and using reserves to finance affordable housing. Planning for Smart and Fair Growth Fair share approaches: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oregon, and other states either require or encourage all municipalities to provide reasonably priced housing. Including affordable housing in smart growth : California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey have sought to integrate mixed-income housing into transit-oriented growth zones that help to prevent sprawl. Inclusionary zoning: California and other states have either encouraged or required municipalities to adopt inclusionary zoning, offering developers opportunities to build larger buildings in exchange for including a percentage of affordable housing. Brownfields and land recycling: In Pennsylvania, a Land Recycling Program helps restore contaminated land. Nearly 1,500 sites have been cleaned up and developed, and many provide mixedincome housing. Addressing the Full Range of Housing Needs Emphasizing preservation: Missouri and Minnesota target resources to urban neighborhoods at risk of abandonment and foreclosure. Supporting homeownership: Maryland s Live Near Your Work program provides state grants, matched by municipalities and employers, to buyers who purchase and remain in homes in designated neighborhoods. Working to end homelessness: Minnesota and Illinois are working to end homelessness by providing public funds to counties and nonprofit organizations finding creative ways to keep families housed. Building a New Road Home: What the Next Governor Can Do Increase investments in proven programs that create and preserve affordable housing, and join the 33 states that have a dedicated housing trust fund. The next governor should make a focused, multi-year, multi billion-dollar commitment to develop affordable and preserve affordable housing, with specific production and preservation targets. Preserve the affordable housing units of millions of New Yorkers by strengthening and fairly administering the rent laws, by restoring home rule over the rent laws to municipalities, by providing state operating resources for statedeveloped public housing, and by working to maintain the affordability of existing subsidized housing that is at-risk, especially state-sponsored Mitchell-Lama developments. Create a fair share/smart growth plan for affordable housing that meets the different needs of all of New York s regions. The next governor should integrate affordable and mixedincome housing into broader transportation, land use, and economic development plans for the state. Such a plan should: Enable upstate communities to revitalize abandoned neighborhoods by better using affordable housing programs in combination with other initiatives. Bring "fair share" housing and smart growth to the state's suburbs. The next governor should support initiatives that require or encourage all municipalities to create affordable housing set-asides or inclusionary zoning policies. Make the state a true partner with New York City in its affordable housing efforts. 9 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

10 Develop and implement a concrete plan to end homelessness, to provide housing opportunities for a range of people with special needs, and a real solution to the crisis of adult homes. Reform the state s housing agencies and authorities to maximize affordable housing production, remove the taint of favoring contributors, and increase the agencies professional staff capacity. New Yorkers cannot afford another four years of failed leadership on housing. Too many more will be doubled-up, paying far more than any household can afford, or homeless. Too many communities will face more abandonment and despair. Too many more dollars will be wasted on subsidies for campaign contributors, rather than going to meet the full range of housing needs of New Yorkers. Instead, the next governor must restore the legacy of leadership on affordable housing that belongs to New York State, with a commitment to adequate resources, to strong leadership, to better planning, and to genuine accountability. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 10

11 INTRODUCTION: A DIMINISHED LEGACY Eighty years ago, New York State was a national pioneer in creating affordable housing in an effort led by its governor. In 1926, Governor Al Smith pushed the legislature to approve the Housing Act, which sparked a wave of low-cost development in New York City, including the Amalgamated Coops in the Bronx, Knickerbocker Village in Manhattan, and Sunnyside Gardens in Queens. 1 The law created the state s first housing agency, which facilitated low-interest borrowing for housing development and, later, the production of public housing. 2 The effort made New York just one of two states to help produce sanitary and affordable housing in the years before the New Deal. 3 and reasonably priced housing. Despite sharply growing need statewide, Governor Pataki and his administration have: Cut investments in affordable housing and failed to provide new funding, even as chronic need swelled into a crisis. Undermined the security of millions of tenants, and facilitated the loss of tens of thousands of units of affordable housing. Invested more than half of scarce taxfree bond financing in luxury housing. Given major campaign contributors favorable treatment and excessive funding. Taken actions that have exacerbated homelessness. Dangerously neglected adult home residents with mental illness, and failed to provide decent housing alternatives. Failed to devise innovative responses to housing and development issues from overcrowding to sprawl to exclusionary zoning to abandonment across the state. Governor Pataki (with Commissioner Judith Calogero) pledged in 2005 to help the Fort Drum area solve its housing shortage. New York s housing needs have grown rapidly, but affordable housing investment has remained limited. Photo Credit: David Sommerstein, North Country Public Radio Since then, many New York State executives have been national leaders in promoting affordable housing. In 1955, Governor Averell Harriman signed the law that came to be known as Mitchell-Lama for its legislative sponsors, and which subsidized the development of more than 130,000 rental and co-op apartments for middle-income occupants. Governor Nelson Rockefeller established the Urban Development Corporation, which created dozens of new mixed-income residential communities across the state (including Roosevelt Island). Governor Mario Cuomo was instrumental in the New York/New York Agreement to House Homeless Mentally Ill Individuals. As he leaves the helm of New York State after 12 years in office, Governor George Pataki leaves a different legacy: a consistent failure to insure that New Yorkers have access to decent An Election-Year Issue As New York s voters choose their new governor, housing will be one of the issues driving them to the polls. Six out of ten New Yorkers polled in 2003 said they were very concerned about housing affordability, a higher percentage than in any other state. 4 New Yorkers upstate and down have seen the state s affordable housing problem grow into a full-blown crisis. New York s ability to compete economically has been hobbled by the shortage of affordable housing in areas where there are jobs, and by housing abandonment and decay in areas of the state with limited economic opportunity. After an extraordinary nine-year climb in housing costs, with prices rising far faster than the national average, New York now faces a housing affordability crisis that affects everyone from children in New York City to recent college graduates in Long Island to retail workers in the Southern Tier. Over the past decade, the median purchase price of an existing single-family home in New York increased by 131 percent, compared with 88 percent nationwide. While New York City and its suburbs were the worst hit, many upstate counties also saw their home sale prices more than double. 11 INTRODUCTION: A DIMINISHED LEGACY

12 Meanwhile, a combination of rising rents and stagnant wages have squeezed renters, making New York the fifth least affordable state in the nation. 5 One effect has been a precipitous rise in homelessness, which has grown 50 percent in New York City since Governor Pataki took office. 6 The housing crisis now also threatens working families ability to remain housed and meet basic expenses, and it depresses the economic prospects of the middle-class workers who keep the state running. In Western and Central New York, cities such as Buffalo, Rochester, and Binghamton are facing a different problem rising rates of foreclosure and abandonment, blighting communities and imposing high costs on already struggling city governments. These regions are experiencing sprawl without growth as families move from cities to suburbs, even as their overall regional economies decline. 7 Business leaders regularly cite the lack of decent, affordable housing as an important impediment to New York s ability to compete economically. In a 1999 survey of major businesses in New York City, 86 percent of respondents said that the high cost of housing makes it difficult for firms to relocate to New York City, and nearly 79 percent said it hobbles the growth of new firms. 8 The Long Island Association, the chamber of commerce for Nassau and Suffolk counties, is so concerned that it is investing $1 million in an advertising campaign to persuade residents to accept mandates for affordable homes in new developments. 9 New Census data reveal that New York has a higher ratio of U.S. residents moving out than any other state. Nearly one-third of Long Islanders say they are very likely to leave Long Island within the next five years because of the high cost of housing 10, and young adults move out of Long Island at five times the national rate. 11 In the 1990s, approximately 235,000 young adults moved out of the downstate area because of the shortage of affordable units, and approximately 330,000 young adults remain in their parents homes because of the high cost of housing in their home neighborhoods. 12 The county executives for Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, and Rockland counties have all identified the lack of affordable housing as one of their most serious problems. Housing: A State Responsibility The governor and the state agencies and public authorities he controls have an enormous effect on housing market conditions throughout the state. Thanks to the work of past state executives, Governor Pataki inherited an impressive array of housing agencies. The State of New York Mortgage Agency (SONYMA) is the largest of its kind in the nation, insuring more than $4.4 billion in mortgages during Pataki s three terms in office. 13 Its sister agencies and subsidiaries, the Housing Finance Agency (HFA), the Affordable Housing Corporation, and the Mortgage Insurance Fund, as well as the Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) and state agencies that develop special-needs housing, together invest more than a billion dollars each year to make housing more affordable in New York State. All were created before Pataki became governor. Rent regulation is also controlled by the state. Although the legislature writes the laws, DHCR wields enormous administrative power to shape regulations and practices. Pataki appointees have used this power to limit the rights of rent-regulated tenants throughout the state and shrink the number of apartments eligible for protection. The social and economic effects of housing programs often go far beyond the homes they create or preserve. Investments in housing have revived and stabilized neighborhoods and help support the state s economy. Many states and localities facing housing issues similar to New York s have responded with leadership and innovation. They have increased public investment, created dedicated housing trust funds, promoted mixed-income housing through zoning and transit-oriented development, established public-private development partnerships, preserved subsidized housing, and launched initiatives to end homelessness. Abandoned homes on Buffalo s Rhode Island Street. A state authority has sold them to a private collection agency. Courtesy of: PUSH Buffalo INTRODUCTION: A DIMINISHED LEGACY 12

13 New York City is one such place. Under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City has provided extraordinary leadership on affordable housing, with an ambitious plan to use public investment and innovative reforms to develop and preserve over 165,000 units of housing. Mayor Bloomberg has continued Al Smith and Nelson Rockefeller s legacy of leadership on affordable housing. In the 1990s, about 235,000 young adults moved out of downstate New York because of the shortage of affordable housing. Governor Pataki has not. He has neither taken action at the state level, nor contributed to local initiatives. In fact, much of the housing created under Mayor Bloomberg s plan has gone to replace affordable units lost as a result of Governor Pataki s policies. Instead of taking leadership to solve the housing crisis, the Pataki administration has instead reduced the public s expectations of what the state can do to make housing affordable. And instead of focusing on public needs, it has focused on those of developers and landlords, shaping policy and using public resources to reward political allies and campaign contributors. Reducing Expectations Rather than invest in housing, the Pataki administration has sought to sweep the issue under the rug. In anticipation of his rumored run for president, the governor s website promotes The Pataki Record in 15 different areas, from Environment and Healthcare to Fiscal Integrity and High Tech. Housing is not one of the 15 areas, and nowhere is a single housing initiative mentioned. The New York State Executive Budget no longer even has a chapter devoted to housing, which it did in prior administrations. Instead, it now buries housing-related spending and initiatives under economic development and other categories. This has helped deflect attention away from Pataki s attempts to cut affordable housing programs. State agencies and public benefit corporations that oversee state housing policy post only minimal information on their websites far less than their counterparts in New York City or in other states. Annual reports provide limited data, making it all but impossible to determine the total spending of each agency each year, or the number and type of units that have been produced. Very rarely has the governor addressed housing issues in public. When he has, he has often overstated the scope of the state s commitments for example, claiming sole credit for affordable housing projects almost wholly financed with federal funds, or by announcing a major new initiative to build housing for homeless people that uses existing public funding to produce more than half the units. Rewarding Campaign Contributors In numerous instances, the Pataki administration s housing policy appears to have been driven not by the needs of the public, but by those of prominent contributors to the campaigns of the governor and state Republicans. Approximately $1 billion a year in bond financing for housing is managed by public benefit corporations, quasigovernmental authorities, subject to much less public scrutiny and regulatory oversight than state government agencies. One such authority, the New York State Housing Finance Agency (HFA), has made exceedingly generous awards to developers who are campaign contributors to Governor Pataki and his allies. Although financing affordable housing is central to HFA s mission, more than half of the units it has produced are market-rate, and most of those were luxury apartments in Manhattan. New York City s Knickerbocker Village, a middle-income housing development, was made possible by New York State s groundbreaking 1926 affordable housing program. Photo Credit: Joanna Cuevas 13 INTRODUCTION: A DIMINISHED LEGACY

14 Deference to campaign contributors is also a dominant theme in the state s work overseeing rental and special needs housing. State agencies are responsible for regulating rents, protecting tenants and licensing housing for people with special needs. In all of these areas, the governor has appointed leading figures from the real estate industry to influential positions in state government. Some were appointed to oversee the regulation of the very industries that used to employ them. This is in contrast to the New York City Rent Guidelines Board, or Mayor Bloomberg s Neighborhood Investment Advisory Panel, which include balanced representation from owners, renters, and public interests. From 1998 to 2004, real estate interests contributed $5.3 million to Governor Pataki. The industry contributed another $11.9 million to Republican candidates for the state legislature and other state offices during the same period, as well as political action committees affiliated with the party. (Real estate interests donated less than half that total amount to all Democrats running for state office during the same years: $7.4 million.) 14 With the governor s support, Republicans in the legislature have rolled back rent protections to levels not seen since before World War II. Operators of adult and nursing homes have been able to influence appointments to positions regulating their industries, at great cost to the vulnerable residents the state is supposed to protect. INTRODUCTION: A DIMINISHED LEGACY 14

15 NEW YORK S GROWING NEED When Governor Pataki entered office in 1995, housing affordability was a problem in New York State. Eleven years later, it has mounted into a crisis: New York s housing costs have risen rapidly, at a rate that has greatly outpaced the nation s. Yet among renters, income has gone down. Nearly one in three New York households spends more than 30 percent of income on housing. Homelessness has climbed dramatically during the last decade. New York is a state with starkly diverse problems in different regions, ranging from overcrowding to abandonment, yet the state has no comprehensive housing policy. Most of the nation has seen a sustained increase in housing costs over the past decade. New York has not only seen its housing costs rise much higher than the national average; most New Yorkers incomes have remained stagnant during this period, making it increasingly more difficult for many residents to afford housing. Home sales prices have escalated precipitously. New York City and Nassau County saw median sale prices of existing homes more than triple from 1995 to The sale prices of condominiums and cooperative apartments in New York State have risen even faster than single-family homes, more than doubling in the last four years. 15 Purchase prices rose significantly even in upstate rural counties where economies are stagnant and populations declining and where rental housing is scarce. In western New York, Cattaraugus and Wyoming counties sales prices rose 174 percent and 157 percent respectively. Housing prices in Schuyler County, in the Finger Lakes region, rose 159 percent. Clinton County in the northeast corner of the state saw a 152 percent increase, as did Jefferson County, home of rapidly expanding Fort Drum Air Force Base. 16 Rental prices have risen dramatically as well. In 1998, the federal government s Fair Market Rent (FMR) for a two-bedroom apartment in New York State was $818 a month. By 2006, New York s FMR had risen to $1,026 a month. And the FMR does not take into account a substantial decline in the incomes of renters across the state. The inflationadjusted median income of tenants in New York State (in 2005 dollars) fell from $43,941 in 1998 to $34,931 in 2005 a 21 percent drop in income, even as the median rent was rising. 17 In 2005, the National Low Income Housing Coalition s annual survey of housing affordability ranked New York the fifth least affordable state in the nation. A household in New York State must earn $19.73 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent. 18 Westchester County, with a housing wage of $25.31 an hour, ranks the tenth most expensive jurisdiction in the U.S., closely trailing Massachusetts Nantucket Island and eight counties in California. Long Island ($24.62 an hour) and New York City ($21.79 an hour) were not far behind. Comparing these housing costs with federal income data, the Coalition estimates that 57 percent of renters in New York cannot afford the average available two-bedroom apartment. Looked at another way, a family earning the state s minimum wage of $6.75 an hour must work 132 hours a week to afford a two-bedroom apartment in New York State. In rural areas of the state, nearly half of renters cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment. Approximately 2 million of New York State s 7 million households both renters and homeowners pay more than 30 percent of their incomes toward housing costs. Among them are more than half the renters in New York City. 19 Nearly 29 percent of New York City tenants pay more than half their income for rent, including more than 286,000 families who earn less than $18,000 per year and receive no housing subsidy. 20 However, the problem is by no means limited to the five boroughs. In Long Island, 327,000 (more than one in three) households cannot afford their housing costs, as well as 197,000 households (one-third of the total) in Westchester, Rockland, Columbia, and Putnam counties. 21 Even in rural areas of New York, affordability is a major problem. These areas have relatively low housing costs, but incomes are also so low that 48 percent of renters cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment without spending more than 30 percent of their income. 22 Upstate urban areas suffer similar cost pressures. In and around Albany, 44 percent of all renters cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment at the average rent. 23 In Rochester, half of renters can t afford a two-bedroom. Rents in Buffalo and 15 NEW YORK S GROWING NEED

16 the surrounding area have risen 27 percent in the last five years, with rents for efficiency apartments rising at almost twice that rate. 24 Downstate: Shortages and Overcrowding In downstate New York, the high cost of housing is exacerbated by a shortage of available homes. In New York City, the rental vacancy rate is now approximately 3.09 percent. It is considerably lower below 2 percent for units affordable to people with low incomes. 25 Any level of vacancies below 5 percent is legally a housing emergency that obligates New York State to keep rent regulations in effect. Long Island has experienced a sharp decrease in vacancies over the past few years. The latest rental vacancy rate for Nassau County is 2.1 percent. In Suffolk, housing vacancies stand at less than 2 percent. 26 The counties just north of New York City have low rental vacancy rates as well, with Rockland at 2.8 percent, Putnam at 3.2 percent and Westchester at 3 percent in Overcrowding and illegal conversions in New York City are a growing problem. The 2000 Census found that New York City topped eight million residents for the first time, adding 685,714 people since The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the city s population has continued to grow since then, adding almost 100,000 more residents by And the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council estimates that the metropolitan region as a whole will grow by nearly 4 million people over the next 25 years. 29 Despite an impressive number of construction starts in the past several years, housing development in the city has not kept pace with its population growth. From 1994 to 2003, New York City issued new certificates of occupancy to just 103,179 units. 30 As a result, overcrowding has increased, particularly in rental housing. In 1996, 10.3 percent of all renting households were crowded that is, they had more than one person per room. In 2002, it was 11.1 percent. 31 This figure is almost certainly an undercount, since undocumented immigrants are more likely to live in crowded conditions than the general population. It is estimated that there are at least 100,000 illegal units citywide, where families live in basements, garages, attics, or subdivided units. Upstate: Vacancies, Abandonment and Foreclosures At the same time, some cities north and west of Albany struggle with widespread housing abandonment. Upstate cities have faced the paradox of sprawl without growth : Over the past 15 years, urbanized land upstate increased by 30 percent, but the population grew by only 2.6 percent. More and more people moved from cities to towns; in the 1990s, upstate cities lost more than 40,000 residents. As a result of this population decline, upstate cities are confronting widespread abandonment and decreases in property values. Binghamton, Rochester, and Syracuse saw decreases in asset values of 18 to 33 percent. 32 From 1990 to 2000, the vacancy rate for upstate cities grew from 8 to 11.5 percent. 33 For the nine upstate cities with populations over 50,000, the vacancy rate grew to 13 percent. The homeownership rate in upstate cities fell from 46.8 percent to 45.9 percent. 34 New York State policy under the Pataki Administration has exacerbated these trends. The New York State Empire Zones program, as Cornell Urban Planning professor Rolf Pendall has noted, provides tax subsidies for many developments in rural and suburban locations, often encouraging jobs simply to move from one Upstate location to another. Partly as a consequence of these investments in infrastructure, housing growth outpaced household growth in every major Upstate region in the 1990s... [V]acant housing and office space proliferated in cities and inner suburbs in every Upstate region. 35 Facing a large volume of unpaid tax and utility bills from property owners, the governments of Buffalo, Plattsburgh, Binghamton and Syracuse turned to the state Municipal Bond Bank Agency (MBBA), a division of the Housing Finance Agency. In 2003, MBBA created a trust, advanced the cities the funds they sought to collect, and now sells the liens on property in those cities to a private NEW YORK S GROWING NEED 16

17 collection agency, which in turn seeks to sell the real estate to new owners. But in many cases, the amount owed exceeds the value of the property, and only a tiny fraction of properties have been transferred to new owners. Bank foreclosure rates are also rising, accelerated by mortgage and appraisal fraud, speculative property flipping, and high-cost, highrisk borrowing. Funds for counseling distressed homeowners are in critically short supply. An essential tool in solving New York City s once-serious abandonment problem was the creation in the 1990s of its third-party transfer program, which allowed the city to convey distressed apartment buildings directly from a negligent private owner to a responsible one, without first taking legal possession of the property. Third-party transfer was made possible by special action from the legislature and governor. New York State has not extended this model or any other innovative approach to cities elsewhere in the state. Homelessness While New York State does not itself count the number of homeless people statewide, in 2005 the state informed the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that it was aware of 66,746 homeless men, women and children in New York State (based on reports from just 36 out of its 62 counties). 36 This figure more than doubled the state s 2001 estimate of nearly 29,000 homeless people. 37 Avg. # of Individuals / night 45,000 40,000 35,000 30,000 25,000 20,000 15,000 10,000 5, New York City Average Annual Shelter Census NewYork CityDepartment of Homeless services historical dataandcritical activities report 2005combinedaveragedailycensus of singleadult andfamilysheltersystems Homelessness occurs in every city and suburb in the state. Even in localities without extreme housing shortages, a dearth of jobs, services, and apartments for single adults and large families contributes to homelessness among vulnerable populations: The city of Buffalo and Erie County are home to approximately 1,400 homeless men and women and 700 children on any given night. Approximately 15 percent have been homeless for a year or longer. 38 In Rochester/Monroe County, about 8,500 homeless families and single adults are housed each year in approximately 750 emergency shelter and transitional program beds. 39 According to the Nassau-Suffolk Coalition for the Homeless, more than 40,000 people on Long Island, half of them children, are either homeless or live doubled up with family or friends. About 25 percent of Long Island homeless are unsheltered and living on the streets. 40 New York City s average daily shelter census hovered around 24,000 when Governor Pataki entered office in Soon thereafter, the census started inching up. By 2003, the average number of homeless people sheltered in the city had reached a record 38,310 men, women and children a night. While these numbers have receded somewhat over the past three years, the fiscal year 2005 New York City shelter census of 35,898 represents a 50 percent increase in homelessness during the Pataki administration. 41 The state estimates an unmet need for supportive housing of 14,266 units for homeless and housing-needy single adults and 10,877 units for homeless and housing-needy families. 42 However, this is considerably less than the known statewide homeless population, or the New York City shelter census alone. Other sources estimate a much higher statewide need for supportive housing for a range of people with special needs. In April 2006, a coalition of New York mental health service providers estimated a need of 40,000 supportive housing units for homeless and housing-needy people with mental illness alone. 43 According to the State Department of Health s 2006 Comprehensive Plan, housing is the number-one unmet need for people living with HIV/AIDS in almost all regions of the state. The department estimated a need for an additional 15,000 housing units for people with HIV/AIDS by 2010 in New York City, and also found increased need in Nassau, Suffolk, Rochester/Finger Lakes, the Western region (especially Buffalo), Albany, and the Lower and Mid-Hudson regions NEW YORK S GROWING NEED

18

19 RESPONSE TO GROWING NEED? SPEND LESS TO HELP Governor Pataki inherited a strong array of affordable housing programs, as a result of the leadership of his predecessors. Yet despite growing need in all corners of the state, from his first year to his last, he sought to cut proven programs. In his first budget, in 1995, Governor Pataki attempted to cut the state s capital investment in affordable housing by 20 percent from the previous year. In the face of the legislature s strong resistance, he settled for a symbolic 4 percent cut to an annual appropriation of $91 million. Over the course of the governor s next nine budgets, state capital investment for building and preserving affordable housing did not even keep up with inflation. State spending slowly inched up to $104 million by fiscal year It would have needed to be $119 million just to have the same buying power as in 1995 with no increase to match the growing need. 45 New York is one of only eight states that do not have a housing trust fund continuously replenished by a dedicated revenue source. As the shortage of affordable housing mounted into a crisis in much of the state, the state Assembly and Senate came to a consensus that the state needed to increase capital spending. In their 2004 budgets, the Senate and Assembly significantly increased state capital spending on housing, by $57 million. 46 The governor vetoed the additions, and the final budget included a much smaller rise. In subsequent years, the legislature continued to seek increases. In his executive budget proposals last year and for fiscal year 2007, the governor held capital investment in housing at $104 million. In both years, the Senate and Assembly increased these appropriations by $25 million, to $129 million annually. 47 Without the legislature s additions, the state s capital investment in housing would have declined by 13 percent in real dollars during Pataki s three terms. 48 The Pataki administration s flat funding for housing came as the state budget overall has swelled to unprecedented proportions. From $34 billion under Governor Cuomo in fiscal year 1995, 49 the state budget has increased over 11 years to $112.8 billion in the new fiscal year an increase of approximately 167 percent when adjusted for inflation. 50 Though increased Medicaid costs account for a good share of the hike, capital spending on investments other than housing these included transportation, higher education, economic development, and prisons rose significantly, too, from about $4.5 billion a year in fiscal year 2001 to 2005, to about $7 billion a year today. 51 Less than 2 percent of the state s capital spending goes toward housing. 52 Most capital funding for housing in the state budget is appropriated to the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), which manages grant, loan, tax credit, and rental subsidy programs. DHCR disburses funds directly to developers and through two public benefit corporations. DHCR also oversees New York State s allocation of federal HOME funds, the federal and state Low Income Housing Tax Credit, and other loan and grant programs. Other housing funds go to the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, which operates the State s Homeless Housing and Assistance Program (HHAP), investing capital funds to build transitional and permanent supportive housing for the homeless. In addition, the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) funds the development of housing for people with serious and persistent mental illness. Affordable Housing Trust Fund: 33 other states have one Slightly more than one-quarter of New York s capital housing funds are spent through the New York State Low Income Housing Trust Fund. It is not a true trust fund it has no dedicated funding stream. Instead, the legislature and governor appropriate a varying amount of state general funds to the program each year, ranging from $25 million to $39 million annually over the past decade. Governor Pataki has long resisted linking the Housing Trust Fund program to a continuously replenishing funding stream, even while many other states have shown that trust funds are viable ways to finance affordable housing development and rehabilitation. By 2002, 33 states had housing trust funds with dedicated funding sources. Eighteen of these states had municipalities or counties that also operated trust funds; 350 in all operate nationwide. New York is one of only eight states that do not have 19 RESPONSE TO GROWING NEED

20 a statewide or local housing trust fund continuously replenished by a dedicated revenue source. 53 states and localities have dedicated various sources of revenues for housing trust funds, including hotel occupancy taxes and fees developers pay in lieu of including affordable housing in their developments. Massachusetts, Ohio, Washington and other states all dedicate document recording fees to housing trust funds. New York State and City Capital Spending on Affordable Housing 1995 to 2007 in Millions $700 $600 $500 $400 Total State Capital Housing Budget (DHCR & OTDA) Total City Capital Housing Budget (HPD) $300 In Orlando, Florida, 40 percent of the apartments in the new City View development are affordable, thanks to support from state s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Courtesy of: Florida Housing Coalition $200 $100 $0 From New York State Executive Budgets , NYS Legislature budget amendments and the NYC Independent Budget Office Florida s housing trust fund, the nation s largest, has created 150,000 units of affordable housing in 13 years. With about $300 million generated annually through the state s real estate transfer tax, it now produces about 15,000 units of housing. To ensure strong revenue for the housing trust fund as well as ongoing support for environmental programs already paid for from the transfer tax, the legislature increased the tax when it founded the trust fund in The Florida fund supports a comprehensive, strategic statewide investment in affordable housing of many different types, with flexibility to meet the needs of different localities and regions. Thirty percent of the revenue goes to the statewide Housing Finance Agency, which uses the funds to subsidize apartment development for very-lowincome tenants. The other 70 percent goes to cities with sizeable low-income populations and to counties. The funds come with strict incometargeting requirements: 30 percent of units must go to occupants earning less than half an area s median income, and another 30 percent are reserved for households earning up to 80 percent AMI. The program places a strong emphasis on homeownership, which accounts for 65 percent of units created. 55 This model of dedicating a revenue stream to affordable housing is proving a durable one. Other With a vibrant real estate market and high sale prices in many areas of the state, New York has the capacity to support a housing trust fund through its real estate transfer tax and mortgage recording tax. Real estate transfer tax revenues have tripled since fiscal year 1998, and are projected to reach $930 million in fiscal year 2006, $800 million in 2007, and more than $750 million for each of the two years after that. 56 New York State law dedicates some real estate transfer tax revenues to fund the state s Environmental Protection Fund and to debt service on the Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act. The governor s fiscal year 2007 budget projects that the real estate transfer tax will provide $147 million to the Environmental Protection Fund and $104 million to the Clean Water/Clean Air debt service fund. The remainder, $532 million, is transferred to the state s general fund to balance the expense budget. Dedicating just half of this amount to a housing trust fund would triple the state s capital spending on housing, while leaving available almost $300 million for balancing the budget. In New York, counties send a portion of the revenues they collect through mortgage recording fees to the Mortgage Insurance Fund of the State of 2007 RESPONSE TO GROWING NEED 20

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